If it were only that simple. The focus, everyone, isn’t on the quarterback position. It’s not about Tommy Rees or Andrew Hendrix or freshman phenom Gunner Kiel.

It’s about Notre Dame, the program. And where the Irish fit in the rapidly changing world that is college football.

Late next month, the BCS commissioners and the sport’s television partners will meet in South Florida to continue hammering out drastic change to the postseason. The Plus One playoff—four teams, three games, one national champion—is the preferred model for many administrators.

The key to Notre Dame’s success—to the program’s survival—is what comes with the Plus One. There is a big push among administrators in both the BCS and non-BCS leagues to eliminate the automatic qualifier status for BCS bowls.

And here’s where it gets dicey: If the FBS presidents don’t also approve the elimination of standards to qualify for a BCS bowl (see: specific number of wins, BCS ranking), Notre Dame will continue to fall further from relevance outside its huge NBC television contract.

Not only will it be increasingly harder for the Irish to find a way to the Plus One without an unbeaten or 1-loss season (the last one: 1993), the days of the BCS placating the Irish could be all but over.

It wasn’t long ago that the BCS agreed to give Notre Dame $1.3 million a year just for the whiff of the potential that the Irish could actually qualify for a BCS bowl. That’s right, the renegotiated BCS contract in 2005 came with a rider that gave Notre Dame money just for being Notre Dame.

Those days, everyone, are long gone.

In years past, the Notre Dame athletic director was the strongest man in the room during BCS meetings. How else do you think the university carved out such unthinkable deals that allowed the Irish to play in the Fiesta Bowl in 1994 with a 6-4-1 record? Or get millions of dollars for simply showing up?

The advent of conference realignment has changed everything. Last month in Dallas, while the 11 conference commissioners met to begin historic change, Irish athletic director Jack Swarbrick may as well have been the commissioner of the MAC.

There are two men running college football right now (SEC commissioner Mike Slive and Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany), and neither needs Notre Dame to get what they want. The thought process used to be that college football was desperate for Notre Dame’s inclusion; for that one national brand regional products could rotate around and piggyback.

Now that the sport has grown beyond a regional base, now that monster television contracts have nationally-branded every conference, there is no need for Notre Dame. It also doesn’t help that the Irish haven’t been a factor in the national title chase since 1993, have had four coaches since Lou Holtz retired in 1996, and have lost a majority of their recruiting cache.

If you think Notre Dame is an out of sight/out of mind brand now, wait until the Plus One puts more emphasis on the four teams that make the playoff—and less on everyone else. Wait until a sport currently consumed by who’s No.1—and the beautiful symphony of arguing that goes with it—devalues such an integral facet of who and what it is by rendering major bowls meaningless.

There once was a time when Notre Dame refused to play in anything but a major bowl. Last December, the Irish played in the second-best bowl in the city of Orlando.

From demanding money to be part of the BCS, to playing in something called the Champs Sports Bowl. From anything you want, to very few options.

There’s no other way to look at it: The next few BCS meetings will determine the fate of the Notre Dame football program.

If the university presidents decide to eliminate bowl qualification standards, Notre Dame will survive as an independent by playing in major bowls with eight-win seasons. And if the presidents decide to keep the standards?